jennifer
Children’s birthday parties are a new thing to me, so when our “baby” was nearing his first birthday, I was kind of at a loss as to what to plan. But, I did know that every good party starts with a theme. Then I was at a loss for a theme. I knew I wanted something unique and specific to the birthday boy. One day it just came to me, his favorite book is Goodnight Moon–we read it every single night and he can already point out some of the items in the pictures when we say them. Then I was at a loss for what to do for a Goodnight Moon party. I searched the internet and Pinterest, but there just wasn’t much out there. So, we ended up coming up with our own party pieces.
First, we picked a color palette. I was never a real fan of Goodnight Moon before we acquired two copies of the board book in the past year. I especially didn’t care for the color in the book, but when I switched my thinking and realized we could use a bright palette of red, green, blue and yellow, it became very fun! The book does offer several staple illustrations–the red balloon, the socks and mittens on the drying rack, the cow jumping over the moon, the little old lady bunny and the young bunny, the mouse, the toyhouse, the telephone, the three little bears sitting in chairs, the fireplace, the windows and curtains, and more. The babe was able to point out the “red balloon” when we read the book very early on, so we knew we wanted to make that a big part of the decor.
I did find a picture of a cake I loved on Pinterest and sent that to our neighbor and expert cake decorator. She fashioned up the most beautiful cakes I have ever seen. We had one smash cake for photos, one smash cake for the party, and one cake to serve the guests. I couldn’t have imagined them turning out any better.
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We sat down and came up with all of the decoration ideas and then made our list of supplies. I wanted to start preparing early because my sister was coming in from Dallas for the party and I wanted to be able to spend time with her that weekend rather than pasting cardstock and ribbon together.
I designed an invitation first. I used the bright green, yellow, red, and blue, included the red balloon, and came up with a little rhyme that associated the book with the party.
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While I was at it, I designed thank you cards to send out after the party and a bookmark to give out as a party favor.
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A couple of weeks before the party, my husband helped me cover our dining room window (which was the backdrop for the guest of honor’s highchair during the cake smash) in crepe paper to replicate the window in the book. My mom cut out stars and we used double-sided tape to attach them. It turned out so cute that we still haven’t taken it down!
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Then I made a banner for the highchair. I just picked out scrapbook paper in our theme colors and cut out the letters to spell o-n-e and used rubber cement to hold it all together. It’s attached to jute twine with hot glue. I had planned to use this in the background of his smash cake photos, but completely forgot when the time came. Sad face.
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The day of the party, we set up a welcome station which included the socks and mittens (cut out of construction paper) clothespinned to our drying rack, the guest book (one of our copies of Goodnight Moon for guests to sign in), the bookmark favors, and a “message in a bottle.” The message in a bottle started at our baby shower. Our friends and family wrote sweet messages on tags with orange ribbon which coordinated with the shower decorations and our nursery. For the first birthday, I used tags with green ribbon. I plan to continue this each year with ribbons that coordinate to the party theme and continue stacking the messages in the bottle through the years.
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The welcome area also included a chalkboard year-in-review. I worked for a long time on this and it ended up being one of my favorite
pieces at the party.
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The dining room table was covered with a blue sheet and made up like a bed with a pillow at one end and the young bunny in the blue striped pajamas. We also included some balls of yarn in coordinating theme colors, as the little old lady bunny is knitting in the book. The table centerpiece was a Ball quart jar painted metallic silver with a glittery number one and paper flowers made out of the pages of a Goodnight Moon book (ordered from Etsy). We tied a red helium balloon to each of the dining room chairs.
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In the dining room entrance, we hung photos of the baby from one to eleven months.
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Since the party was on a Sunday afternoon, we just served snacks and drinks. Above the food and drink table were red and white paper fans that we bought at the craft store. They were so cute that I wanted to leave them up, too, but we didn’t.
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Last but not least, I bought a little gray t-shirt at the craft store and some iron on letters for the birthday boy’s attire for the party. He already had the shorts that matched the party theme palette.
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The morning of the party we got busy making food and decorating. Eventually I had to jump in the shower. I came out of the shower to a perfectly decorated house, thanks to my mom and sister working like busy little beavers without needing any direction!
Once guests arrived, we read Goodnight Moon, opened gifts (an overload of gifts!) and then had cake and ice cream. The babe was very delicate with his smash cake at the party. He just kind of poked at the icing and stayed neat and clean and even preferred to use a spoon. It was a beautiful day and we all ended up outside swimming, playing at the water table, riding the horse, grilling, and sitting around the fire until dark.  
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